


When I'm Gone

by shulamithbond



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Original Work, Reality X, well sort of - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Real World, Disabled Character, Don't Like Don't Read, F/M, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2454656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shulamithbond/pseuds/shulamithbond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had to write a short story for an English class and was having feels about this ship at the time, so I wrote an AU of it, because I am trash. Professor seemed to like it okay, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I'm Gone

         “You think you want to change?” he asked her when they were safely in the door. He locked it behind them and she felt the space close up around them – a cave of reasonably-priced brown-upholstered furniture and seventies-style wood paneling. The whole tiny apartment reminded her of being wrapped in her warm brown afghan, back in her dorm, on a blue winter night. A faint and fresh whiff of some lemon-scented cleaner floated on the edge of the air; she relaxed, for the moment.

        “Yeah,” she replied when the question finally registered. “I’d better.” He nodded, and she marveled at how it felt not to be ashamed of waiting so long to answer a question while you waited for your brain to adjust and buffer. She knew she should get to it, but she couldn’t help watching him strip off the jacket that hung slightly too big on him. He was a thin, small, wiry man, much less than a foot taller than she was even with his hat on. As he shrugged off the jacket, his shoulders flexed and rolled in a way that reminded her of a cat’s movements.

         He grinned when he saw her looking. “Quit ogling me and go change if you want to. I don’t have time to chauffeur _you_ places all night.” But he was laughing – not literally, but in the silent way some people had about the way they stood and the way their eyes shone. She was _good_ at telling when _he_ was joking. It felt natural in a way that wasn’t natural at all, not to her.

         “Why, what are you going to do?” she joked back, going out on a limb. “When I’m gone? What are you rushing off to? Some screening of…of Finnish silent movies from the 1900s or something?”

         “ _Norwegian_ silent movies, I’ll have you know. Don’t laugh at me, I’ve got a life outside of you and the center and movies. I’m not just sitting by my princess phone with my Ingmar Bergman on, waiting for you to call.”

         “Ingmar Bergman was Swedish. _You’re_ the one who told me that.”

         “ _Go change_. This train is leaving in half an hour whether you’re ready or not.” Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her go into the back bedroom, and his gaze didn’t leave her until she shut the door. He realized the corners of his mouth were faintly sore from grinning most of the afternoon.

 

         _At least I’ll be able to get out of these shoes,_ she thought, _and this bra_. The shoes were black buckle heels – only an inch or two off the ground, and wedges, with pretty good soles as far as heels went – but they’d still been a little piece of hell to balance in, and her feet were about ready to fall off. Still, it was nice to wear footwear that wasn’t totally sensible every once in a while. She wondered if other women like her thought so, too. Most of the ones she talked to online and at the center went on and on about preferring comfortable, ugly clothes and shoes for “sensory reasons.” Sometimes, she wondered if she was the only one of them who liked comfort and practicality, and who had sensory issues, but who also wanted to look stylish sometimes, or at least feel as if she looked stylish. She didn’t exactly mind; it was just a bit lonely at times.

         She stripped off the red lace dress. It looked like something you’d find at a consignment store, a survivor from an eighties prom, and for a while after she’d bought it, it sat at the back of her closet, partly because she had nowhere to wear it, but also partly because she didn’t have the guts. People would think she was wearing a costume, or that it looked garish or matronly on a shape like hers; discordant on someone who carried themselves with the bookwormish hesitance that she did. It had become one of her favorite “date” dresses.

         Taking off the strapless bra was a relief, and for a while afterward, she lay back on the bed and looked up at the _Blade Runner_ poster on his ceiling. She often saw it, but rarely got the chance for a good look. _Blade Runner_ was the first movie they’d watched together; her ride was late picking her up from the center, so after the _official_ movie night ended and he showed up to close the doors, they stayed in the screening room together to watch. She still remembered crying over the replicants; having to sit calmly and answer odd questions while their humanity was determined based on what some stranger thought of their capacity for empathy. It had been a beautiful movie.

          She remembered how his face had looked, even to her, when she explained to him about the replicants. At first, she’d panicked because she thought he was insulted, but then he’d shaken his head, wide-eyed. “Honestly, I never even thought about it before,” he told her. “That’s…that’s really interesting…can you believe it, I’ve been working here for almost three years and I never even thought of it like that before. But I guess I never needed to. I guess you…you need to think about that stuff, don’t you?” She remembered being surprised because she hadn’t expected him to understand. Most people at the center wouldn’t. Especially the therapists and specialists, the ones with all the degrees. How strange, she’d thought at the time (it wasn’t a very enlightened thought on her part) that someone like him did.

         She was dressed again in her everyday clothes – nice shorts and a clean T-shirt, small earrings, and sandals – and had just begun wiping off her eyeliner and lipstick when he knocked on the door (she wondered if she still smelled like her perfumed body spray). “You ready? We should get going.”

         “You know, I’m sorry,” she told him as they headed out the door. “I’ve kind of got a lot of my stuff here right now, don’t I? Relatively speaking, I mean.”

         He shrugged. “It’s all right by me. Don’t worry about it.”

 

         They drove the scenic route in his used blue Chevy, watching the houses get progressively larger, farther apart, and more elaborate in their design as they neared the campus. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he remarked. “Wish I could design a house like that. Hell, I wish I had a house like that.”

         “I guess so. I’m not sure I’d want a big yard like that, though, unless I had kids or something. It’s a lot to take care of. And you’re really far away from people.”

         “I’d like the space, myself.”

         She shook her head fervently. “If I had that much space between me and my neighbors and town, I’d probably never end up going anywhere or talking to anyone.”

         He was quiet for a while, and then he shifted. “Hey...are you nervous about your parents visiting?”

         “Why would I be?”

         “I don’t know. You just always seem to tense up like this when they come up.”

         “It’s just because I don’t want to stop hanging out with you. Because I don’t like the transition. It’s just a hard transition, that’s all.”

         “Guess so.” He darted a glance at her, and then looked back at the road. “You can tell them about me, if you want. Could make it easier, I don’t know.”

         “Do you want me to?”

         “I honestly don’t mind. Whatever works.” She wished he wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t tell if he was just trying to be accommodating, or if he really didn’t mind.

         “But you could get fired from the center.”

         “We’re not doing anything illegal.”

          “You could still get fired.”

          He didn’t say anything for a while after that.

 

          “There’s going to be a midnight screening of _Blade Runner_ in town this weekend,” he told her when they cruised past the campus gates and pulled up by her dorm. “Want to go? Remember that movie night thing at the center, back when”-

         “Of course I remember.” She beamed. “I’d love to go.”

         He grinned, self-consciously, as if his lips couldn’t do anything else. “Great. I’ll call you. Have a good visit, okay?” He looked up at her sympathetically. “They’re your parents. And more importantly, from what you say about them, they like you.”

         “I know.”

         “Okay.” He gave one last grin. “Well…see you around.”

        “Wait.” She leaned in through the window, emboldened, to kiss him and to whisper as seductively as she knew how in his ear, “Enjoy _Ingmar.”_

         “You are a smartass latte-sipping college kid and you are mocking me,” he insisted as he kissed her back. “You really don’t think I do anything but work, watch my ‘weird’ old movies, and hope you’ll call, do you?” He watched her until she was back in her dorm, and then pulled out.

 

         She went up to her dorm, and for a while after he left, she didn’t do anything. There was always film studies homework, but she felt too tired for it, in a bone-deep way. The room felt big, and empty, and a little too cold.

         Sometime later, a shiny gray car she didn’t recognize – it must be the new one – pulled up, and from her dorm room window, she watched her parents get out. She took one last look in the mirror to make sure her neckline wasn’t too low and her bra wasn’t showing, and she mentally primed herself to smile for them while they asked about how many friends she was making and what activities she was doing and whether her testing accommodations were in place for the semester. She wiped off the very last traces of makeup, and went down to the front door, taking the stairs carefully, and flinching out of other students’ ways as they rushed past.


End file.
